


Shut up, I am dreaming of places where lovers have wings

by mazily



Category: Sports Night, The Office (US)
Genre: Crossover, Multi, Sitcomathon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-13
Updated: 2009-11-13
Packaged: 2017-10-02 14:45:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mazily/pseuds/mazily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>tagline: song ideas for my next album</p>
    </blockquote>





	Shut up, I am dreaming of places where lovers have wings

**Author's Note:**

> tagline: song ideas for my next album

**1\. A song about a really cool chick and how she turns me on.**

It starts like this: "It's not a balcony," Jim says, gesturing toward the fire escape, "but maybe we can sort of pretend?"

And Pam smiles, she laughs, and she kisses him right there in front of the landlord and the broker and the former tenant's freaky bald cat. They' sign the lease, pay far too much money in security and key deposits, and that's that. Jim gives his notice at Dunder Mifflin, and Pam formally signs up for the graphic design program (Jim does not want to think about the look Jan gives Michael at that bit of news, mostly because it's creepy and predatory and oh so very wrong), and everyone lives happily ever after.

And then: begging the night manager at Wegmans for boxes (this only after Dwight's _"stop, thief! Put down the stolen boxes and no one gets hurt!"_ when they tried to carry a stack of old paper boxes Toby'd given them as a 'Getting the Hell out of Dodge' present out to Jim's car), packing, a U-Haul that never shows up, sleep, food, panic, a U-Haul that does show up, coffee, work, food, sleep (life). Life happens. Spring turns to summer fades into autumn. Jim doesn't dress up for Halloween, but Pam is a witch. They don't get any trick-or-treaters, which is good; they didn't buy any candy.

Jim likes making pancakes, likes the smell of the buttermilk and watching for the little bubbles that mean he can flip them over. It's a sort of zen thing: Sunday breakfasts, fresh coffee, pancakes, orange juice, bacon. Pam is still asleep, face smooshed against her pillow. She drools, but Jim is saving that revelation for the perfect occasion. Like Christmas. Or her birthday.

So he's making breakfast. Singing along to Journey's Greatest Hits because Pam could sleep through World War III, and "Anyway You Want It" is one hell of a song. The bacon sizzles. The pancakes aren't ready to turn.

Pam stands in the doorway, the light from the bedroom window framing her like a halo, and she wipes her eyes with the backs of her hands. "Mmmm," she says, yawning, "Smells yummy." She tastes like toothpaste when Jim kisses her, and, later, like maple syrup. When they finally stumble out of bed, it's past noon and rain pings against their fire escape. They sit on the couch, eating grilled cheese sandwiches and watching _I Love the 80s._

"Oh, man, _transformers_," Pam says. "More than meets the eye!"

Pam likes top 40 radio. She likes MTV. She likes TRL and _VH1 Celebreality_ and _American Idol_. She asks questions like: "So, how much do you wanna bet that Lance Bass slept with Justin Timblerlake at least once?", and "Remember when Britney kissed Madonna?", and "Hey, we should totally go to a TRL taping one day, don't you think?".

"Sure," Jim says, "TRL. Go, go, Carson Daly."

Pam laughs. "Ha!," she says, "I knew it! You love him, you're his biggest fan, you want to have Carson's babies."

 

**2\. A song about how I live life to the utmost and how most folks don't know how to "fly," if you know what I mean.**

It's snowing. His nose is cold, his ears; he isn't wearing a hat, and his scarf is icy and wet, scratchy against his neck. Everything is grey, and more grey, and someone is leaning on his car horn. It's an entire symphony of bleeps and beeps and _"fuck you, asshole!"_s. Jim sneezes. He should've left work early, when Sue and Liza and Steve and Mike all bundled up and said things like, "Yo, Halpert, wanna split a cab?" and "They're saying a foot, at least, in the park" and "Fuckhead, just go home already."

He didn't though. Go home. He stayed, and finished his project, and when he left it was just him and the workoholics in legal and possibly some janitors or something left in the office. His department was all creepy and deserted, and he walked out into black and white New York. Like a movie. Something with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, smoking and gangsters and a musical number or two. Some asshole stole his iPod last month, so he hums something from the radio as he walks. Beyonce, he's pretty sure, though it could be from the Destiny's Child days. It's catchy. A completely inappropriate soundtrack for his day. Jim walks faster, and he doesn't slip and crack his head open on the curb. There's a bar on the corner, and baby it's cold outside.

So: a man walks into a bar. No one yells, "Norm!"

"-so then Dana says, she's, Dana's our Executive Producer, right? So she says," this guy at the bar's saying, waving his drink a little too vociferously. He looks familiar. Jim stomps his feet, the snow crunching and melting into little puddles, and he takes off his scarf. His lips are dry; he wipes his nose on his sleeve. The guy's voice fades into a sort of buzzing background noise, like that weird thing his freshman roommate needed to sleep, and Jim looks around. The bar's pretty empty; other than the loud guy, there's just the bartender and a woman reading Hillary Clinton's biography who may or may not be a waitress. Jim heads over to the bar, takes a seat a few stools down from the guy (whose voice slips back into full volume, talking about soccer and elitism and "warm, man, they drink their beer warm, which is just, it's like soccer in its deviousness, right buddy?"). He's looking at Jim. Was there a question?

"Um," Jim says. "Right?" He turns to the bartender. "Could I get a Sammy, please? And, uh,"-- he looks over the grease-splattered menu in front of him, trying to decide whether or not to risk ordering-- "some wings."

"You should try the chicken salad, man. You wouldn't think so, but it's pretty damned tasty."

"Stop harassing the customers, Danny" the bartender says, but he's smiling like Danny's his nephew or a stray puppy or something cute and slightly obnoxious. When he puts Jim's beer down, it sloshes over the edges and onto Jim's hand where he grabs it. He licks between his thumb and index finger where it's sticky and yeasty, and changes his order to the chicken salad. The guy smiles and gives him a big thumbs-up.

Jim drinks his beer too fast, and signals the bartender for another. "Hi," he says, "I'm Jim."

"Dan," says the guy, says Dan, and when he smiles the skin around his eyes crinkles.

A man walks into the bar. He doesn't leave alone. It's snowing, and he can't go home.

 

**3\. A song about how strung out I was for a few weeks after you left me. Just let it rain, is what I thought, because that's the way I felt inside.**

It happens like this: Carson Daly no longer hosts TRL. It's raining, a cold sort of late winter early spring rain, and Pam's throwing a pair of socks at Jim's head. The TV's on, and it turns out that Dan-from-the-bar (and later Dan-from-Dan's-really-nice-apartment) is actually Dan-from-TV, and he's tearing into the President like he not only gives a fuck but knows what he's talking about as well.

Jim's impressed. A pink bra hits him on the forehead, and _\--"coming up next, we translate the latest press briefing from Elvish to English," Dan's saying, "after this 'blink and you'll miss it' word from our sponsors"--_, "this means war," Jim says, grabbing a towel from the pile of clean laundry.

Pam laughs, sudden and beautiful, and starts hurling tee-shirts and panties and pillows at him. He ducks, he covers, he fights dirty and he doesn't win, exactly, but he doesn't lose. Pam giggles when he tickles her, and she pushes him into stack of sweaters and kisses him senseless. Jim reaches up, and he holds onto the headboard. He doesn't let go.

It happens like this: he wakes up, the alarm clock buzzing like a narcoleptic buzzard, and his hands are sore. Pam is curled up in a little ball, still asleep, eyes twitching. She kicks in her sleep. Jim pushes back the covers, kisses her forehead, and tiptoes to the bathroom. His feet are cold. The floor is. Pam doesn't wake. He takes a lukewarm shower and washes his hair with Pam's green tea shampoo. He drinks coffee, eats a bagel with lite cream cheese, walks to the subway, goes to work, works, eats lunch, drinks more coffee, works some more, goes home: lather, rinse, repeat. One day, he'll go home, and Pam will be sitting on the couch, crying over an episode of _Dr. Phil_.

"I," she'll say, "We need to talk," and there will be a Dunder Mifflin duffle bag near the door. Jim will say, "No, no, you can stay. I'll just," and he'll sleepwalk into the bedroom and throw his clothes into a trash bag. He will sleepwalk past Pam ("you just need some _Guy-Q,_" Dr. Phil will be saying), past the transvestites across the hall and the hipsters who live in the stairwell; he'll sleepwalk out into the night and across the river and all the way back to his office. There's a shower there. No bed. He'll play Sudoku all night; he'll worry about it in the morning.

It happens like this: he won't wake up, mostly because he never went to sleep the night before. His eyes will itch. He'll get a coffee from the breakroom, change his tie, and he'll walk back to his desk. An outlook reminder will pop up: _buy Pam roses 4 anniv_. He'll dismiss it. His eyes will burn, and he'll wonder if he has pink eye. He won't call the doctor.

He'll sit at his desk, not working. He'll call Dan, and he'll say, "Hey, Danny, um, Pam, that is, would it be okay if I crashed with you tonight? I wouldn't ask, but." He'll blink. The letters on the monitor will dance and blur together. Dan's voice will be tinny and distant, but he won't say no.

He'll say, "Of course." He'll say, "Just give the doorman your name and he'll send you right up."

It happened like this: a man walked into a bar. It was snowing. No one yelled, "Norm!" as Jim walked through the door, but he had _"sometimes you gotta go where everybody knows your name"_ stuck in his head for a week.

 

**4\. A song about how important it is to take a chance on love, to just go for it�"it's really worth it.**

It happened like this (the memory will pop into Jim's head while he's trying to figure out why, exactly, the lower lefthand box can't be 7): it's snowing, and Jim can't go home. It's last call ("you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here"). Dan's eyes are slanty, and his cheeks are pink, and Jim thinks that it would be his best prank ever if he could only figure out what to do about that.

"We're closing," the bartender says. Jim blinks. That doesn't make any sense. "You have to-"

"Hey," Dan says, "Come on, man. We can. This is New York, city that never sleeps, and there's a blanket of yellow and grey snow out there that says. Well, it says something, and we are young, and we are men, and we shall go out and hunt the elusive. Nacho."

Nothing makes sense. Jim reaches down to tie his shoelaces, and his fingers tingle. "Lead on," he says. Dan does. Jim follows. Outside, the wind bites into his skin and howls against the skyscrapers. He trips over his own feet, slips on a sheet of ice, and lands, sprawled and tangled, on top of Dan.

"Hey," Dan says, "I can't feel my nose. Is it, is my nose still there?"

Jim laughs. Touches Dan's nose. Breathes on it, muttering, "gotta get warm, can't get frostbite, can't feel your nose. I, there was this guy I used to, a real asshole, but still. Can't get frostbite. Cut off your nose to spite your face." He can't tell if he's rambling, but he knows he probably is. Dan's nose tastes funny. Like New York snow.

Dan pushes Jim away, but he's smiling. "C'mon," he says, "I've got a kickass apartment. You gotta see my TV, man, it's, like, elephant-sized. It's fucking huge, man, c'mon. To watch football on that television is to watch the game as it was meant to be seen, bigger than life and." Jim trips over a stick or a can or maybe even a rat; he trips over _something_, at any rate, because he's nowhere near the tripping over his own feet stage of inebriation yet. They fumble and twist and Jim's back is against a wall, and Dan's face is close and huge. "And I was about to veer into the truly horrific innuendo there," Dan says, "so thank you for, you know, being a clutz."

"No problem, man. Besides being the official unofficial king of pranks, that's totally my best feature."

"Seriously? That's Casey-level lame, man, that's McCall-level lack of cool."

Jim doesn't understand, but that's starting to seem like the theme of the evening. "My ears are cold," he says.

 

**5\. A song about this freaky dude I know who's shunned by everyone else because he's different, but only I see what's loveable about the guy, and that we should all cherish individuality.**

And then: Jim wakes up, and Dan isn't in the bedroom.

"Casey, look, can you just listen to me for," Dan's saying. The name sounds familiar. Jim takes a leak, and he washes his hands with Dan's fancy handsoap. He lets the water run for a while, squeezes some toothpaste on his finger and rubs it across his teeth and over his tongue. When he looks at himself in the mirror, he looks like ass. Like ass that was run over by a truck. He's in serious need of a shower, and Dan is still talking to Casey(-who-could-be-a-man-or-a-woman). "Seriously, yes. Fine, I will, of course I will, I'd love to guest, just can we maybe discuss the details later? I've got a," and his voice trails away again. Jim sticks his tongue out at himself, and he combs his hair with some water. He takes a deep breath. He opens the bathroom door.

The bedroom is big. Nice. Jim's cell phone is on the dresser, beeping accusingly. There are seven missed calls, three voicemail messages, five texts; all from Pam, all variations on the theme of "where the fuck are you, you asshole?" and "you'd better not be dead, Halpert, because I'd have to resurrect you just to kill you myself."

He's a coward, and he texts back: "Sorry. Snow, w frnd. CU soon."

He's a coward, and he can't find his socks. He needs to go home. He's an asshole, and a jerk, and his head is pounding in counterpoint to his racing heart. He should buy flowers, nice ones, or jewelry. Chocolates. Dan's suddenly in the room with him, shirt off and sweatpants riding low on his hips; he's holding the phone in his hand, thumb still on the 'off' button.

"Mornin'," he says. His hair's sticking straight up, and Jim reaches up to fiddle with his own hair. It's still damp. "I, uh, your clothes were all wet, so I stuck them in the dryer. I mean, I know I hate wearing wet socks in winter, so I figured you might-"

"Morning," Jim says. "That's. Thanks. Yeah."

Jim sits on the bed, and Dan hovers near the doorway. Jim's watch feels too heavy on his wrist.

"Uh. Casey's my, was my, he was my partner. In case you-"

"I have a girlfriend," Jim says, even though he doesn't mean to, "Pam. She's-"

"-oh. Well, that's, good for you?" Dan stares at his feet. Wiggles his sockless toes. "Coffee?"

Jim's phone vibrates; he looks at the display, reads Pam's name, and doesn't answer. "Coffee'd be great, actually. I might even go so far as to say perfect, but I'm withholding judgment until I've actually tasted it."

Dan laughs. "Prepare to be amazed, my friend," he says. "I brew the best cup of coffee in Manhattan."

And then: they drink coffee. It isn't half-bad. When Jim's clothes are dry, he dresses and bundles up in all his winter gear. Dan opens the front door, says, "hey, well, it's been swell," and swoops in with a quick attack kiss. Jim's halfway down the block before he realizes that he kissed back.

It starts like this: he buys Pam an overpriced mocha and a chocolate croissant as an apology. She yells at him for worrying her, for being an inconsiderate bastard, but she never asks where he really was. Never asks who he was with. Never looks too closely at the bruise he says he got "slipping on the sidewalk like a complete loser."

He hates himself for feeling relieved. For being glad.

 

**6\. A song obliquely about the sex act: an invitation for my ideal woman to come on over and "do me," if you will.**

Sometimes, Jim sits and his desk and asks himself, "is this my life?" The answer is always yes.

He's walking down into the subway, and he thinks about Odysseus descending into Hades. He thinks about Persephone, and the pomegranates Pam keeps in the fridge, and he thinks about ice cold lemonade and fried chicken and baseball. Winter is still clinging to the city, icy fingers grasped tight around tree branches and buildings, but Jim is thinking about spring, about Spring Training and leaves unfurling light green and alive.

There's an ad for Dan's show on the wall. Someone spray-painted a curly orange mustache over most of his face, and Jim makes a mental note to tell Dan then next time they talk. "Like a cartoon villain," he thinks he'll say, and Dan will either laugh, will think it's funny, or he'll get the same sad sort of pensive look on his face that he gets when talking about _Sports Night_, when thinking about Casey, and Jim will have to tell another guaranteed to make anyone laugh Michael Scott story to cheer him up. They'll drink Coronas, and they'll eat burritos, and Dan will scream at the refs on TV.

A woman glances in Jim's direction, turns and looks again; sometimes, Jim wonders whether people remember him from the documentary or if they're actually checking him out. He almost always thinks it's the former. 99.9% of the time he's absolutely sure it is. Jim grabs the strap of his bag to keep from waving like a giant dork, and he turns and heads down to the 7. She runs for the shuttle to Grand Central. Down, down, down into the bowels of hell, he thinks, and it's suddenly hard to breathe. One day, this place will bury him alive. He misses driving, misses the feeling of the open road he got even in bumper-to-bumper traffic; he misses riding his bike to work, even though it made him sweaty and gross. The subway can have the same effect, it turns out, without even the benefit of being a decent workout.

It happens like this: he leaves work early, and he goes home. Pam is already there, and she's crying.

And then: "We need to talk."

 

**7\. Let's wrap up with a song about how love is really the most important thing and we all ought to live entirely for love, and give love in return. **

It starts like this: Pam lies across the couch with her head in Jim's lap. They're eating popcorn.

It starts like this: Jim stands in Dan's open doorway, a torn Hefty Bag of clothes in his arms. "Hey," Dan says.

**Author's Note:**

> keith olbermann is my hero, brian geary wrote the headers &amp; tagline for mcsweeney's, the title's cribbed from sunset rubdown, everything i know i learned from the internets, we're following the leader, the leader, the leader. written for K.


End file.
